CREEPS AND JOY

I'm writing this because I just finished watching "Forest of the Dead," which I will not discuss because some people are a few weeks behind on this sort of thing. So in the name of "spoilers" there will be no spoilers. You'll get it when and if you see it.

I've always thought Steven Moffat was quite good. I enjoyed his structural adroitness in Coupling. Once I really got into Jekyll, I found it to be one of the best things I'd seen in all of 2007.

His Doctor Who's have been consistent favorites and he has not let me down, despite the massive anticipation built up when ever I see his name on the roster, and now, with his taking over the showrunnerish duties, there is very much the possibility of the best show I'll ever see in my life being on the horizon.

Well, honestly, there is always something better just beyond the curve of the universe, isn't there? When there isn't at least the possibility, it's time to turn off the lights, and shunt off. So, yeah, I'm overstating, but I like fucking overstating. It's a measure of my enthusiasm.

The cool thing is, there's still a lot of stuff of his I haven't seen. Some of it, I'm not sure I'd like, but I want to give it all a shot. I want to find his episodes of Murder Most Horrid. I think I may well order up the Joking ApartDVDs from Amazon UK. Used though. Ehn.

This man, however, has such a grasp of the amazing things that can be done with popular science fiction. Keep your sodding singularity shit to yourself, hardcore scifi-ists. I'm a character-comes-first guy and the things Moffat can do with the weird and the sublimely frightning is astounding.

If you have even an ounce, a cc, a cubic nanometer of love of scifi, of geekism, or enjoyment of solid TV writing, if you have all three of these in any measure or combination, I cannot stress enough how much you have to be watching this show. It's filled with creeps and joy and it's worth-- so worth slogging through the episodes that maybe don't quite click with you. There are two episodes since the new series began that I absolutely loathe. Go now to your Best Buy, you Netflix, whatever you've got and get that first disc of the first season. Whole different Doctor (Eccleston, you liked him on Heroes, right?) in that first year, but when you hit "Father's Day" and "The Empty Child," you'll start scratching the surface. There WILL probably be episodes you don't like. The show is versatile and can pull of having a massively different identity from one episode to the next, with the only real constant being the Doctor himself and there's even variances in that when a new actor comes in. So much a hero in a world overrun with anti heroes. And with his dark secrets nonetheless.

In fact, while I was writing this, I spoke with a friend in a far-off land and he told me his girlfriend had watched a Doctor Who, randomly, for the first time and didn't like it. Yeah, well if my first Battlestar was "Black Market" or my first Friday Night Lights was "Last Days of Summer," well...I would give it another one or two. Sampling data demands it.

You got a show you're thinking about stopping watching...? Replace it.

UPDATE: It just kinda hit me, about Moffat's sci fi stories. You know how sometimes, when you kill off a major character, that episode can me really strong, powerful...profound sometimes? Maybe it's just the license to break out of things because you're killing off someone. Image if you could get that kind of push from people living, being saved, even just guest characters, and you totally feel it. You just don't get that thrill from Buffy saving somebody from a random vamp or when Claire or Peter or whoever on Heroes-- Well, I don't even get that from Heroes, they seems to be saving or failing to save each other more often than not, but that's what it is. For me.